The Artist director's follow-up film falls flat at Cannes

French director Michel Hazanavicius leaves after after the screening of the film "The Search" at the 67th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 21, 2014. Michel Hazanavicius followed up his Oscar winner with a Chechen war drama, again starring his wife Berenice Bejo, which disappointed Cannes critics on Wednesday. -- PHOTO: AFP

CANNES, France (AFP) - The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius followed up his Oscar winner with a Chechen war drama, again starring his wife Berenice Bejo, which disappointed Cannes critics on Wednesday.

The Search, a remake of a post-World War II classic by Fred Zinnemann, features Bejo as Carole, a human rights official for the European Union during the second Chechen conflict in 1999.

She grows increasingly exasperated with the indifference of her bosses in Brussels, spurred on by an American charity worker (Annette Bening), who tells her her reports are useless if they don’t lead to Western intervention.

When Carole meets a nine-year-old Chechen boy struck silent after his parents are gunned down by Russian soldiers before his eyes, she sees a chance to at least make a difference on a smaller scale and takes him in.